Lucknow, May 31: If Amarmani Tripathi was counting on a quick return to the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet with a clean chit from the CID in the Madhumita Shukla murder case, he is going to be disappointed.

In an interim report, the CID has said it cannot complete the investigation within the one-month period set by chief minister Mayavati. The report will be handed over to Mayavati when she returns from abroad.

“We are in no position to give a clean chit to anybody till we have found out who killed the Hindi poet and why,” a senior CID official said.

Tripathi has been shouting his innocence since Madhumita’s sister Nidhi alleged that the former minister had a relationship with the poet and that his wife could be behind the murder. He claimed he had met Madhumita only once at a kavi sammelan in Gorakhpur three years ago and had no further contact.

Mayavati sacked him reluctantly on May 17 — six days after the murder — after the Opposition mounted pressure and the BJP endorsed the demand for the minister’s removal.

The chief minister’s decision to shift the murder probe from police to the CID and her directive that the investigation should be completed within a month gave Tripathi hope. Mayavati announced that he would be reinstated if the CID cleared him.

The delay in sending Madhumita’s foetus for DNA testing — she was found six months pregnant at the time of the murder — has given the CID reason to seek more time for the probe.

“The DNA test has become crucial because investigations till now have indicated that Madhumita was intricately involved in the minister’s personal affairs,” said a member of the team working on the case.

The foetus reached Hyderabad’s Centre for DNA Testing and Fingerprinting only this Thursday. The test is likely to take time since it is in queue.